


Eat Your Heart Out

by orphan_account



Series: Take a Dip into my Daydreams [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Darling Pan - Freeform, F/M, It's Kind Of A Given, Mute!Peter, of course she is, pendy, peter x wendy, well-read!wendy, zombie!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 08:54:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1184313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after the world fell and Walkers rose from their graves, Wendy has survived on her own by being smart and quick. Her rules are simple: be selfish. This includes not risking her life to rescue the possibly-insane, highly-damaged boy who attacks first and asks questions later.</p><p>Too bad Wendy's never been one for rules.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eat Your Heart Out

It’s been a solid three years since the world went to hell.

Wendy has made her home in an abandoned library, in the midst of the city. A dangerous move, maybe, but she’s come to learn that the living are just as dangerous as the undead, now. Humans are few and far between, and the ones she’s encountered haven’t exactly been  _friendly._  They gravitate less and less towards cities that can’t be easily walked in and out of, she’s found, so that’s where she goes. So far, she hasn’t been bothered.

 

The Walkers, as they’ve been dubbed, come in thick clumps and loiter about the denser parts of town, searching for fresh meat. They’re at their most numerous during the night, their most active. In the daylight, they’re merely shuffling hordes, unless they get a good whiff of you.

 

Wendy keeps out of their way, skirting through alleyways and clambering over fire escapes, far away from the action. She spends most of her time learning the city, finding new routes to take, making games in her head to keep from going stir-crazy. Those days spent leaping across rooftops, flying over the gaps in buildings with wind smarting her face and blowing back her hair are the days she feels most alive, most carefree; she can imagine she’s an adventurer, a thief, a daring femme fatale.

 

When night falls, the library is the best place to be. She figures that it’s full of books that were once priceless, so the security system that she triggers every sundown is pretty good at keeping thieves in, and Walkers out. It’s state of the art, installed the very year that the dead started clawing their way out of graves and onto the streets – she’s checked. Runs on solar energy, but she knows that even the flat, gleaming panels atop its roof that connect to the electricity won’t last. If it breaks, she can’t fix them.

 

So she’ll move on.

 

Wendy has only lived in the library for six months. She’s been in the city a little longer, maybe eight. She travels around, packing up her things and leaving when things go to shit in one place, tries to find another, safer residence.

_Movement is life._ Change is good, necessary. Permanence leads to death; that’s what her father told her, his last piece of advice born on his dying breath. Adapt to survive.

The rest of her family didn’t get the memo.

Right now, she’s rummaging through a pile of discarded underwear in the men’s section of Walmart (the women’s, drained dry – apparently they were the only ones to think of those things), stuffing boxers and briefs and tighty whities alike into her bag, shooting glances over her shoulder every so often. The windows of the store have been shattered, and it wouldn’t be the first time she’s been caught unawares by a Walker that’s decided to hide in the belly of a ransacked shop.

In her hand, she holds a bloodstained crowbar, its bent tip resting on the edge of the wire underwear basket. It looks casual, but her fingers are pale with the strength she employs to grip her weapon. At her hip, a long dagger she pilfered from one of those fancy martial arts’ stores two blocks across. Surprisingly, a lot of the junk in there was still in its case.

A handgun, automatic, the safety flicked on, rests in the bottom of her knapsack. It contains only two rounds. She doesn’t use it. The sound attracts Walkers, which is more trouble than it’s worth. The bullets in there a for last resorts, only.

She clears her throat, quietly. Mutters to herself, random words that don’t pay any relevance to what she’s doing but it keeps her talking, keeps her calm. She’s learned not to let herself go for any length of time without making her mouth shape sentences, doesn’t matter whether she encounters people worth holding conversations with or not.

Wendy stuffs the last article of clothing into her backpack, and hooks the straps over her skinny shoulders. She pats her dagger, checks the buckle on her utility belt (it’s clunky, but useful for storage), adjusts her grip on the crowbar. She nods, absently, and makes her way through the check-out counters towards the exit. A skeleton, bones picked clean by the rats that lurk in the shadows, lies slumped in one of the aisles, but she ignores it.

“Blue.” She says. “The blue ones, please. Yes, forget-me-nots. They’re my favourite flower.  _Thank_ you,” she adds, graciously.

 

She’s aware that, to a passer-by that is capable of rational thought and doesn’t want to eat her flesh, she looks insane. But it’s a better, safer coping mechanism than  _she’s_ seen before.

 

“Mhm. I know. Stupid, right? My brother is  _such_ a pain in the ass.”

 

Wendy keeps up the flow of words as she walks out the store, mumbling them under her breath as she darts, silently, down empty streets. She has it all mapped out; knows the city better than anyone. She knows which alleyways have fire escapes within reach that she can grab onto in a pinch, she knows how to get three blocks across without her feet even touching the ground. She knows the subway tunnels, the roofs, the buildings.

“I don’t understand the question, I’m sorry.”

The words rattle empty, to her, collecting at the bottom of her heart like rotten leaves in a drain. They taste bad, in her mouth. Like she’s drowning in thoughts unfinished, choking on the words she never had a chance to say.

She takes a sharp left, scattering gravel where her boot heel carves into the street, and stills. She hears something carried on the wind, the murmur of a sound.

Growling. Chattering. Moaning.

The first two, she doesn’t understand. It’s almost like an animal, only twisted – in pain? – and, and  _human._ She read somewhere, once, that a horse’s scream is so disturbing to people because it sounded like a horrific version of a human crying out in pain, gnarled and ruined. Is it a horse, then?

 

Had the poor thing broken free of its tethers in the countryside (it’s not far off, maybe three hours from Atlanta) and galloped straight into the hungry arms of Walkers?

Her heart twists in sympathy. It’ll be beyond saving, now. The undead will have ripped it apart, tearing its guts from its belly and devouring them, squishing blood between their gory fingers –

Wendy swallows against the nausea that rises in her throat.

The moaning gets louder, and this she recognises; it’s the horrific sound of Walkers, the terrible, dusty groan that emanates from tattered lungs. It drifts from the dark, soggy cavern of their mouths, fringed with rotten teeth. It’s the sound that every survivor hears in their nightmares.

She turns to run, to pull down the ladder of the fire escape that she keeps at the ready in case of emergencies on the side of the local police station, but stops short when a wordless exclamation of – of  _anger_ , and pain, and human desperation rings loud and true behind her.

 

It’s a snarl; the voice of a boy, twisted in fury. It’s clipped and breathless, and something thrills in her heart – he’s  _fighting._ She lunges forward, scrambles up the fire escape and to the roof.  Stops, ears pricked, and then sprints to where the noise is coming from.

 

The source is about three buildings over – Wendy leaps over the gaps, muscles bunching in her legs – and when she reaches it, she nearly screams.

There are  _hundreds_ of them, scrambling over each other, a heaving, bloody mass of Walkers that move together like one huge monster – all desperately,  _hungrily_ trying to reach the lanky figure that crouches atop an abandoned army tank.

 

She swallows, looking down at them. She’d thought she was safe – with her little home, her map – and the Walkers have gotten into the city ( _her_ city) without her knowledge.

Wendy’s gaze flicks to the boy.

He’s snarling, spitting, lashing out with the dagger he holds in his bony fingers. The expression on his face is frighteningly animalistic as he plunges his weapon through the eyesocket of one of his attackers. Blood, thick and black, gushes from the wound and coats his fingers. He scrambles backwards and kicks out at another one, who falls back into the crowd with a strangled groan.

He’s good –  _very_ good – but the raw numbers he has against him is more than a match for his skill.

 

“ _Hey!”_ Wendy screams, going against everything she’s learned in her three years as a survivor.

“ _HEY!_ ”

 

The boy looks up at where she waves, frantically, and cocks his head. He looks… confused.

 

Odd, really. She’d have expected relief, or terror. He wears scuffed jeans and a filthy green sweater that looks about three sizes too small, his golden-brown hair caked with grime. His skin is pale –unnaturally so – but that could be in contrast with the blood and muck splashed on his person. His tongue flicks out to wet his lips and his hands twitch in the same sort of motion, jerky and  _strange._ He watches her with a rabid curiosity she can feel the pressure of, something alien in his eyes.

 

“Behind you!” she calls, and jabs a finger in the direction of the alley wedged between two buildings.

He seems to follow her actions rather than her words, whipping his head behind him, scuttling dangerously close to the edge of the tank to get a closer look. His movements are so  _strange_ ; he uses his hands to play leap frog rather than crawl, bunching his knees up near his ears, stretching out his lean legs to support his weight.

He sends her a quick glance over his shoulder, lips tugging downwards. The Walkers moan and reach for him, but his dagger flashes and one falls against the others, creating a gap in the crows. His muscles flex under his ragged jeans, and he  _leaps_  –

 

Wendy chokes in a gasp, watching with wide eyes as his long body stretches in mid-air, as he carves a graceful arc through the air and lands like a cat at the mouth of the alley. He takes off at a sprint, disappearing round the edge of the red-brick buildings like the shadow of a bird moving across the ground – fleeting and  _gone_  – and she’s left with airless lungs and a horde of Walkers to avoid.

 

She doesn’t wait for them to realise that  _she’s_ the easier meal, now. Her yelling has made her presence known, and she needs to haul her ass out of there and back to the library to shut it down before they get riled up.

 

Well, more riled up than they are  _now,_ anyway. She holds her crowbar at the ready, leaps down from a lower part of the building to a nearby fire escape, and drops to the ground. Gravel rushes up to meet her but she’s ready for it, tucking and rolling then finding her feet and  _running –_ it’s nothing compared to the strength and grace of the boy whose life she, effectively, just saved, but she’s learned a few tricks – leaving the moans of the undead behind her.

 

Wendy darts through dark alleyways, dodging around abandoned dumpsters, so quickly that her hair flies out behind her and her backpack drums a bruise into her spine. A Walker rounds the corner; she takes the knife from her belt and plunges the blade into its eyesocket. It falls, and she wrenches her weapon away and brings it up in a sweeping arc across the outstretched arm of another corpse. It stumbles back, and before it can come at her again she’s gone, swallowing the sour bile rising in her throat.

The broken, faded yellow ‘M’ of a McDonalds comes into view – she’s less than a block away.

Wendy pushes herself to move faster, pumping her arms and legs until the lactic acid build-up is almost unbearable, the air in her lungs sharp. She feels a presence directly behind her – groaning, snarling – its gnarled fingers snatch her hair and panic, acidic and potent, floods through her – she cries out desperately, and out of reflex she twists round to slash her knife across its sagging, rotten face – but it’s so close, inches away and her blade merely nicks loose skin – she slips, falls, and the Walker tumbles with her.

Her skull smacks the pavement. For a second, the edges of her vision fade to black but there’s screaming inside her head –  _no no you can’t no_ – and she rolls, scrambling away from the horrible creature. It reaches for her, growling, and hot, thick blood pours from a shallow cut above her left eyebrow, tainting the world red as she crawls backwards on hands and feet. One of its fingers snatch at her shoe – it lurches forward suddenly, ruined teeth gnashing – Wendy  _screams,_ lashing out but she’s dropped her weapons and she can’t think for  _stupid girl you should have left him be selfish be selfish_ – and then –

 

A dark shape blurs over them both, chattering and leaping. A flash of metal, and the Walker’s throat opens up, black blood trickling sluggishly from long-dead arteries. Another flash, and it slumps forward – a knife plunged through its skull. Pale fingers, stained with dirt, wrap round the hilt and pull it away with a sickening _sshk_ sound. She lets out a sob, and then the elfin face of the boy she rescued becomes her whole world. She can’t see anything but him.

 

His eyes are large, almost childlike in their confusion, but there’s that  _animal_ quality to them again – that glint that makes her feel as if he’d like to cut her open just to see how all her pieces fit together. He tilts his head to peer at the wound on her head, making a weird guttural noise in his throat.

 

Wendy feels the air compress, her vision fading to black, and then nothing.

 

***

She wakes with vomit on her shirt. Maybe it’s the smell that rouses her; there’s quite a lot of it.

She looks down at herself, grimacing in both pain and disgust. There’s a persistent throbbing in her head, and when she raises a palm to gingerly press at the injured spot, it comes back bloody.

“I can’t have been sleeping long.” she says aloud, and it’s the slight cough to her right that makes her take in her surroundings.

Instead of lying on the cold, hard pavement, surrounded by Walkers, she’s in a library.  _Her_ library, to be exact. In the … science fiction section – yes, that’s it – reclined on a dilapidated red sofa. Sitting in the shadow of a tall bookshelf containing the works of Stephen King, is the boy, watching her with wary – albeit still fascinated – eyes. He fidgets with one of the sleeves of his too-small sweater, chewing his lip.

_How did he know I lived here?_ she wonders. He must have carried her the rest of the way, after fending off that Walker, up the stone stairway and through the lobby. She notices that he’s settled in the best vantage point of the entire library; from the large window, you can see pretty much the whole block without anyone being able to see  _you_ from down below. She can’t tell whether he did that on purpose or not; sure, he’s good at fighting the Walkers, but not much about him screams  _strategy._

 

“Who are you, boy?” Wendy asks.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he releases his lower lip from between his teeth and shuts his mouth.

“What’s your name?”

Nothing. His eyes sweep over her form, but it’s not in the lewd way she’s gotten from creepy survivors in the past. It’s pure curiosity, complete with a child-like tilt of the head. He’s something of a dichotomy, really. Body and (a few) mannerisms of a teenage boy, the eyes of a child, and movements of an animal. To be honest, it’s not the weirdest thing she’s come across – so she rolls with it. OK, he’s probably a little insane. She talks to herself, like, all the time. Who is she to judge?

Wendy sighs, irritated. “Seriously? I  _saved your life_  –” he saved hers too, but she’ll touch on that later “– and you’re not gonna talk to me?”

Still nothing.

“At least come out from behind that shelf. C’mon.” she beckons, and, reluctantly, the boy scuttles awkwardly from his hidey-hole to a spot near her feet.

He darts a glance up at her from underneath ridiculously long eyelashes, looking vaguely irritated. His lips remain pressed firmly together, and he keeps his torso leaned away from her, but at least he’s not just  _staring_. She notices, suddenly, that beneath the dirt and pallor, he’s actually quite handsome. His features are dramatic; a wide mouth, sharp cheekbones, with big, green eyes under thick black brows and the echoes of a dimple in his cheek.

 

She sees through the bags under his eyes, the hollow look about him, his greasy hair – perhaps because she’s so used to staring in the cracked bathroom mirror, searching for the girl she used to be – underneath the blood and pain and horror.

“OK,” Wendy says, “OK, good. Um.”

He watches her with a blank expression, seemingly waiting for the rest of her sentence. She sucks in a breath through her teeth. Funny, how when she talks to herself she’s eloquent as hell – she spends most of her time  _reading,_ for God’s sake – but the presence of a potentially cute (and insane) boy seems to suck all the words from her vocabulary. At least, the ones longer than five letters. She cards a hand through her hair out of habit, wincing when the sleeve of her shirt snags on the cut. She doesn’t think she’s concussed – really, her fainting was the shock more than anything – but she still needs to clean herself up. A quick glance out the window tells her dusk is approaching, and fast.

 

“I’m gonna lock up,” she tells him, and whether or not he reacts is lost to her as she stands. There’s only a few seconds of dizziness, during which she grips the chair’s back to steady herself, before she blinks rapidly to clear away the fog.

She weaves through the rows of books with practised movements. She knows every inch of this library, now; just as she  _supposedly_ knows her city. Passing through the section labelled  _900_ – Geography and History, in the Dewey Decimal System – she finds the small metal box stuck to the brick wall, fishing under the neck of her sweater for the key she keeps on a piece of string.

 

Wendy unlocks it, activating the security and watching the steel doors as they lower to the ground, sealing themselves. The noise of it is kind of worrying – the great crashes, the tinny alarms that have faded with their batteries but  _somehow_ keep going, warped and super creepy – but there’s certainly something satisfying about knowing your own safety. Before the library, she often went weeks without a good night’s sleep. Jumping at every noise, having to put her faith in the locks on doors and windows – hearing the moans of the undead, just outside her temporary home.

 

She’d been terrified at every moment, and it was exhausting. The library had probably added years to her life.

It’s probably unwise to be upright so soon after an injury – and a near-death experience – but if Wendy doesn’t lock up, there’ll be a far worse fate than the occasional throb of an oncoming migraine upon her. She’s about to assess the damage with one hand pressed to her cut when she hears a cry –  _the boy_  – from the science-fiction section.

 

She darts back to him, quicker than she should, stumbling through the rows of literature to find him curled up against the brick wall, eyes wide. At the sight of her, he snarls and presses his cheek to his knees. His fingers scrabble for purchase on the ground, as if he’s trying to anchor himself.

Wendy stops short about three paces away. “Um,” she murmurs, “you OK?”

A stupid thing to say –  _obviously,_ he isn’t. His skin has gone from simply sun-deprived to ashen, sweat shining on his forehead. Rapid breathing heaves his chest, his fingers shake, and when he lets loose the most broken whimper she’s ever heard – not even from her brothers, not even when they’d been  _dying_ – she can’t help but immediately lower herself to her knees. She reaches out to him, and at first he flinches away, but there’s nowhere to go but the wall, so when her knuckles brush against his shoulder, he merely squeezes his eyes shut.

 

Alright. So. From what she’s gathered, the boy isn’t exactly in a good state of mind. _Is anyone?_ she asks herself, but this is different – he can’t speak, obviously, and doesn’t seem to recall the ability to move in a way that isn’t distinctly  _animal._

 

She shifts closer, moving to put her other arm around him – and his head whips round, teeth bared and face contorted in an awful mask of fury. He emits a low growl, rumbling in his throat, a  _threat,_ and she scrambles backwards.

 

Apparently satisfied that she’s far enough away, the boy’s expression returns to that of distress. He swallows, making another whimpering sound.

“You don’t like to be touched?” she asks, and he looks at her again.

OK, so now she knows he’s not deaf. Whether he understands what she’s saying, however, is unclear. At least, until what happens next.

His eyes narrow. Slowly, jerkily, he shakes his head.

_Progress._

 

“Why did you… freak out?”

A violent head-shaking this time – he looks harried, worn.

“You don’t like questions, either.”

Another head-shake.

Wendy leans her back against the seat of the red chair, frowning. “I’m gonna get some food. Interested?”

A hesitant nod, accompanied by sniffling.

She’s not sure what exactly he’ll want to eat, so she grabs one of the trolleys by the front desk on her way to the pile of non-perishable food items she keeps stashed in the photocopier room, intending to provide him with a broad selection. She stacks cans of peaches, baked beans, tomatoes and even some potato chips into the wire frame, wheeling it back to where the boy sits.

 

He seems to have calmed himself down more, his breathing less hysterical and his eyes not as wild. He’s pushed the sleeves of his sweater past his elbows – not that they needed it, considering they only went to mid-forearm at full length – and she can see the way his skin stretches over bones, mottled and scarred with injury. He’s thin – cheekbones casting awful shadows on his face – but at least he has an appetite, judging from the way he perks up at the sight of her smorgasbord. She notices the way he jumps when the rusted wheels of the trolley squeak particularly gratingly, his mouth tugging down at the edges.

 _Maybe it’s noise he doesn’t like?_  she wonders.

 

She sits closer to him, this time, and a half-smile tugs at her lips when he doesn’t show any further sign of alarm. “Hey. We got peaches, beans, potato chips… you choose.”

From her armful of product he selects the peaches, holding it up to eye level. He regards it for a moment, curious, then proceeds to try to get it open with his teeth. His  _teeth._

 

“Uh, no –” she tries to take it from him, but with another one of his crazy-sharp movements he’s yanked it out of her reach.

At least he doesn’t snarl, this time.

She huffs out a sigh, and risks his irritation by lunging forward and knocking the peaches from his grasp – he’s not the only one with fast reflexes, nor is she unpractised in fighting for food. She catches it with her other hand, says “ _wait_ ,” and is fairly surprised when he obeys. From amongst the foodstuffs she procures a can opener – taken from her own kitchen, one of the only surviving souvenirs of her old life – and works the lid off. Carefully setting it down next to her (she’s not all that meticulous, but she’d like to reduce the damage done to her vomit-stained clothes), Wendy holds out her hand with one expectant brow raised.

 

He shakes his head.

“Gimme your hand.”

He shakes his head again, this time furiously.

She tips her own head back to give an exasperated groan, then holds up two fingers and dips them into the open can. She ignores his noise of disgruntlement, telling him, “like this, see?” and scraping two peach slices – dripping with syrupy goodness – and pops them in her mouth.

He goes to snatch the can from her, but she pushes his hand away. “Peaches for an answer to one of my questions.”

He pouts – actually  _pouts –_ and gets about ten times cuter. Suddenly, Wendy is violently reminded of the vomit on her sweater, and the evil smell that must be wafting from it. She clears her throat, trying not to feel embarrassed. Why should she? Every survivor’s been covered in all manners of bodily fluids. A little puke isn’t something to cry over.

 

“What’s your name?”

He gives her a maddened look, gritting his teeth.

“Alright… how did you know I lived here?”

At this, he grows uncomfortable, shifting and lowering his gaze. For a time, he says nothing, and she’s about to move on when he give an audible sigh. He looks up; raises a finger to point at his chest, slowly and deliberately.

“You,” she repeats, and he nods.

He then raises the next finger – universal sign for _peace,_ she notices – and points the two of them at his eyes.

 

“Watching?”

A glimmer of a smile, this time. Her chest swells, even if it is just a quirk of his cracked, dry lips. He points at her.

“You were watching me?” Wendy squeaks in surprise. “Why?”

The boy’s expression of slight satisfaction disappears, replaced by frustration. He makes a few twitching, lightning-quick motions with his hands – but they almost seem absent-minded, the mute version of hemming and hawing.

 _Wait._ “Is that – are you signing?”

 

Nod.

Her mouth falls open. “You can sign and you  _didn’t start off like that?_ ”

 

He jerks towards her, a startled breath whisking itself from his lungs. A small, genuine grin appears on his lips, and a hopeful sheen to his eyes. He signs again, hands fluttering like a butterfly’s wings, the delicacy of the motion reflecting the sudden glint in his eye, but she doesn’t need to be able to understand to know what he wants to say.

“I can’t sign – sorry – but we’re in a  _library!_ There’s gotta be books about this – c’mon –”

She thrusts the can of peaches into his open hands, scrambling to her feet.  _Four hundred,_ she thinks,  _languages section._

 

Wendy sets off, marching towards her destination. A quick glance over one shoulder tells her that the boy is following at a safe distance, his eyes darting in every direction and his walk filled with caution. He looks slightly more human, as he scoops peaches like she taught him, sucking the juice from his fingers. Hopefully it’ll put some colour in his cheeks.

She doesn’t think about how this’ll be the first human she’s spoken to – using the term loosely – in a little under ten months. All she knows right now is that there is a boy in her library, and he saved her life, and there’s something in her chest that makes it feel as if it’s about to burst with excitement – perhaps it’s pride, an ecstatic reaction to the discovery of  _another survivor,_ another living thing with so much space to grow.

 

A companion.

She doesn’t need to be lonely anymore.

***

“OK. I’m assuming you can hear me, right?”

_Yes._

 

“But you can’t talk.”

He signs – she gets him to repeat it until she’s found the right translation in her book. She’d skimmed through  _Sign Language for Dummies_ until the boy had snatched it from her grasp, replacing it with  _American Sign Language,_ an approving nod in tow. She flips to the correct page:

 _Obviously,_ the sign comes up as.

 

“No need to be snarky.”

For this, she merely gets an eye-roll.

“What’s your name?” Wendy asks, ignoring it. She adjusts the wet rag she has pressed to her head, inspecting it for fresh blood. It comes back clean, and she lowers it to her lap.

 _P – E – T – E – R,_ he spells out, slowly and concisely.

 

She bites her lip. It’s interesting, looking at the way he communicates with her. Every now and then, he makes a twirling gesture with his finger which she takes to mean  _um –_ like he’s trying to think of what to say next. It’s an odd symbol of normality she’s missed, scripted in the air for her to commit to memory. The slow conversation is almost a welcome relief, really, because now she can literally  _watch_ it happening. It’s been an age since she’s been able to simply sit back and enjoy some of the little things. “I’m Wendy.”

 

A little wave, this time, and a smile.  _Hello,_ it says.

 

She utters a short laugh. “Hi, Peter. Why were you watching me?”

He raises an eyebrow in reply.

“Yeah, I don’t mess around. Tell me.”

He shrugs.  _Lonely._

 

“Oh,” she says, after several attempts at translation, “well you could’ve just said hi.”

A snort escapes his lips.

“You know what I mean.”

He points at her.  _You._ Shakes his head.  _Don’t._ Opening and closing his mouth. _Speak._

“I don’t… speak? You mean I can’t sign? That’s why?”

_Yes._

 

“Hey, for all you knew I could’ve spoken sign language!” she tells him indignantly.

 _You don’t speak,_ he repeats. Something tells her it’s more along the lines of  _I was right, though,_ judging by the slight tugging of his mouth at the corner.

“That’s – that’s not the point.”

He gives another, one-shouldered shrug, then points to the bag of potato chips she has tucked under her arm, and then at himself, eyebrows raised in question.

“Oh, sure. Here.” She tosses it to him and he snatches it from the air – it’s not catching, it’s done with such predatory grace and speed that it looks more like a _hunt_ – and brings it to his mouth, tearing the plastic apart with his teeth.

 

Again, she’s shocked at his sudden display of animalistic ferocity. Especially since it’s wedged between something so painfully  _human_ as sharing potato chips, sitting knee-to-knee – even if her shirt  _is_ stained with puke and his with blood, even if loud noises make Peter quiver to his bones, even if every book she’s ever read on PTSD seems to have been written with his symptoms in mind and  _even if_ she’s known him only an hour – maybe less – but still she feels lost at the thought of his pain.

 

He notices her expression and halts, mouth full of junk food and crumbs cascading from his lips. He swallows, slowly, making an effort to chew politely. The motion is stilted, though, as if he can’t remember what it’s like to  _not_ eat as if it is his first and last meal for a  _very_ long time.

 

Wendy smiles at him. Looks down at the book, flipping the glossy pages until she finds what she wants to say.  _Don’t… worry…_ she signs, probably agonisingly slow to him but progress to her,  _it’s good._

 

He stares at her for a second longer, before fishing round in the remnants of the plastic bag for a single chip; he pinches it between thumb and forefinger, raising it to his lips, and pops it into his mouth with scant control. With his other hand, he signs:

_Good or bad?_

 

A slow, wide grin blossoms over her face. She looks him over, at the way seems so relaxed compared to the way he was before, unperturbed at her knees pressed to his. She steals a few crumbs from the bottoms of the bag, laughing when he makes a half-hearted attempt to swat her away.

 _Good,_ she signs. 

 


End file.
